


"Okay, Deal."

by unholygrass



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: 5 am writings, And so is Connor, Apologies, Connor whump, Gen, Major Character Injury, North is my favorite, Not Beta Read, Poor Connor, Trust Issues, cold open, hurt Connor, no explanation, so here is them together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 13:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17643800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unholygrass/pseuds/unholygrass
Summary: North wants to make a better relationship with the Deviant Hunter after Connor is injured saving Markus's life. Connor shares some of his own insights, and things go better than expected.





	"Okay, Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> its 5 am. this is not beta read. i havent even read it twice. i wrote it in 30 min. my brain wouldnt let me sleep until it was done. Now its done. Now i sleep.

Of all the people Connor is expecting to visit him in the crisis suite, North is not one of them. Perhaps that’s why he’s so startled when the door is shoved open long after his last visitor had left.

He levers himself up from the gurney in one jerky motion, reaching for the bag where he knows his personal items are folded— along with his gun. His systems aren’t expecting the sudden movement and complain immediately by sending harsh sparks racing up his back and into the base of his skull. His vision dims for a second while the world rights itself. He’s only managed to knock his clothes onto the floor, too far out of his reach, shit—

“Stop, Connor. Hey—“ Strong hands latch onto his biceps and keep him from falling onto the floor, sitting him up and hanging on. It’s only then that he sees North’s hard face looking down at him. Her eyes are dark, but her face isn’t twisted in that way it does when she’s truly angry.

Connor finds his thirium pump slowing pace as the possibility of a potential threat is significantly lessened, though his stress levels stubbornly hang in the high forties. North was one of the last people he thought would find him in the repair bay.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” She says, and it could be an apology, but it doesn’t really feel like one. Connor doesn’t mind.

“It’s alright,” He tells her as he scoots back into the center of his cot. Androids had no need for blankets and pillows, but Hank had brought him some anyway, along with his favorite pair of sweatpants and a hoodie (“Because I’m fucking old, Connor, and no part of my old man soul wants to see your shiny white android ass. For fuck sakes, put the pants on.”), and while it does seem somewhat silly, he can’t deny that he does feel safer with the quit that smells like coffee and socks that have Sumo hair on them.

If North is judging his very hu man -esque com forts, she doesn’t let it show. She motions to his empty thigh socket. “Do they have a replacement yet?”

“No. Our representatives within CyberLife are struggling to gain access into my production labs, where the spares are kept. Markus went to meet with them thirty minutes ago.”

North nods and steps back from the bed somewhat awkwardly, as if just realizing she was standing so close. She glances around the rest of the suite, to the chair pulled up to his bed and the computers lining the walls, to the empty thirium packs on the floor. She nudges one with the toe of her boot. “Hopefully it won’t take long,” she tells him, and that throws him for a loop because it sounds sincere.

North knew plenty well how to be polite, but with the inner circle she said only what she meant and didn’t waste breath on false pleasantries. It was something Connor liked about her, because if nothing else it was efficient, but more because it fit her personality very well.

“Yes,” He agrees, because the prompt pops up on his HUD and seems like a good thing to say. He’s not good at this— North isn’t here to make small talk: she could have found out his condition from Simon or Markus or any of the technicians, and she wouldn’t have come just to say hi. She was here for a reason, but she didn’t seem to be quite ready to tackle it yet.

That was okay, Connor decided, because if it was making North uncomfortable, then he was sure that it would certainly make him uncomfortable as well, and they didn’t both need to be uncomfortable together. He was already uncomfortable just sitting on a gurney, missing a leg and his gun out of reach, he wasn’t in any rush to add to that list.

“Does it hurt?” She asks after another moment, eventually deciding to sit in the seat that’s pulled closer than the others. She pulls her legs up next to her and leans over them.

“Androids don’t feel pain,” He tells her, because that’s the easiest answer.

“Bullshit. We both know better than that. You had your leg blown off. Does it hurt?”

He sighs, a habit he picked up from Hank, and his fingers begin to pluck at the threading of the blanket covering his lap. “It’s... not a particular sensation I want to experience again, no.” And that seems fair, because it’s certainly not a lie.

But North doesn’t look convinced. She gives a little huff and seems like she wants to say something rude, but settles on “What about right now?”

Connor considers himself. He still has a bullet in his abdominal cavity, but it can’t be removed without at least two more techs on hand, and a machine to help bypass a central line of his thirium reserve. It’s not destabilizing him any further, so they’d decided to leave it for the night until they had the right equipment on hand. It was uncomfortable to feel the bullet connect with his interior components— sometimes it grinded, and sometimes it pinched, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

As was his leg. Sure, he wishes he had it, just for the mobility sake and even a part of his pride, but it wasn’t unbearable. Sometimes his processor released code that was meant for his leg to run, and the errors that build in pressure at his hip because of it are uncomfortable, but he wouldn’t call it  _ pain,  _ necessarily.

But he doesn’t know how to put any of that into words, so he settles on “It’s not lovely, no, but it’s not unbearable.”

She seems to accept that with a faint nod, hands folding in her lap. He keeps waiting for her to finally talk about whatever it was she had on her mind, because he can practically see it spinning in there, but her mouth remains shut.

He liked North. She was strong and fierce, and she didn’t take anyone’s bullshit. Sometimes her aggression was unfavorable, but she had very intelligent insights into the safety of Jericho, and he found himself respecting her and her perseverance above all else. Plus she didn’t much care to waste time, and neither did Connor. He liked that she didn’t dull herself just to earn the favor of the people they met. He liked that she intimidated the humans, just how they should be. They played nice because that was how they were going to earn freedom in the long run but watching the humans fidget around North was satisfying.

He wished she trusted him more, but he understands why she doesn’t. She’s seen him pull his gun at the speech in Hart Plaza, and her trust in him could mean the difference between the life and death of her family. It didn’t help that Markus had ultimately decided to trust him a long time ago, and therefore North had been forced to distrust him enough for two people.

He understands, but sometimes that doesn’t help. He still wants to please, and he wished he was on her good side.

Then again, the accountability for his actions is almost relieving. If somehow he was hijacked again, he can trust that North will shoot him down. He wouldn’t be a danger to those he loves.

He must have been staring at her while he mused, because now she’s giving him an odd look. He almost apologies, but she opens her mouth first. “Connor, listen.”

He sits a little straighter, his fingers moving faster over the fabric. He wishes he had his quarter.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been cruel to you,” She tells him, words clear and sure. She swings her legs out of the chair to lean her elbows on her knees, looking him in the eye. He can’t quite look away. “I didn’t trust you. It didn’t have anything to do with you as a person. It was because what you were forced to do, and I know that’s not fair, but we just couldn’t afford it, not when we didn’t know who you were. It was too dangerous to trust blindly like that, with what you are capable of.”

He immediately notices her use of the past tense, a strange feeling beginning to stir in his chest.

“But I’m sure I hurt you because of it, and I’m sorry, Connor.”

Yeah, it’s certainly not what he was expecting her to say. He doesn’t have any preparation to deal with anything like this. He can tell she’s being genuine, and it’s nice, it’s really nice, the warmth in his chest is completely overshadowing the sparks in his hips, but what does he say?

He decides to be genuine back. She deserves that much certainly. “I know why you couldn’t trust me,” He says, each word not quite feeling right. “And I could never hold it against you. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t seem to completely believe him. He continues. “If I was in your place, I would have done the same thing.”

She huffs again and leans back in the chair, eyeing him up and down. Connor has seen her use this look before on senators in the courthouse. It never fails to make them squirm. Connor is proud that he feels no such compulsion to do so.

“You wouldn’t know much about my place anyway. Besides, Markus decided to trust you,”

“You and Markus have very different pasts,” he reminds her.

“You don’t know anything about my past.”

“No, I don’t—” He hesitates, because what he wants to say may anger North, and he doesn’t want to do that— but he also wants to say it, because it’s how he feels.

He decides to fuck it. “— but, if I had to make... inferences, based on the minimum of information I am aware of... I would say that you were totally justified in all of your reactions. I only know just a tiny sliver of what  _ may _ have been a similar past to yours, and if I had experienced it myself... I certainly believe I would take your same stance.”

He had looked away while he spoke, because he knew that if he saw North’s anger before he was done speaking that he would stutter and cut himself off, so he doesn’t get to see the flash of something miserable across her eyes.

By the time he does look at her though, she’s still watching him closely, but her eyes are softer, and  _ this  _ look is one he knows she reserves only for her family. The fact that he is receiving it makes his head rush.

After another moment she reaches across to his bed and places her hand atop his. It’s smaller and far warmer, and he logs the feeling of it into his long-term memory backs, right beside the first time he’d made Simon smile and the time Josh had requested his help specifically.

“I’m going to try to trust you now,” Her words are not as harsh around the edges as before, but they’re still firm. Connor thinks she may be also talking to herself. “Anyone who dives in front of a bomb to save us deserves certainly that much.”

He wants to tell her that that’s his job, but when he’d told Markus as much he’d gotten scolded, so he doesn’t.

There’s something else, lurking on the tip of his tongue that he needs to address with her anyway. He just doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t dare let the silence settle, or he may never talk again. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

She clearly hadn’t been expecting that, but after a moment she nods anyway. “What is it?”

“If you do... think that something isn’t right with me—“ His fingers are cold even as they pluck, and if he thinks that maybe if he thinks hard enough he’ll begin to imagine the sensation of snow landing on his skin. “That... I might be... a  _ threat, _ to Markus, to everything we’ve been fighting for— that you’ll kill me.” He can’t ask Hank, or Josh, or Markus. He might be able to ask Simon, but he’s not sure Simon would be able to pull the trigger if the time came.

No, it has to be North.

Her face doesn’t change, but Connor sees her whole body stiffen. He knows this isn’t a pleasant thing to ask somebody, but he’ll never be able to rest if he isn’t sure he has a safety net to fall back on.

“You would trust me with that?” She murmurs, voice low. “With your life?”

“Yes,” He answers immediately. This is something he’s sure of.

She can’t seem to look at him anymore, and she looks away to the terminal sitting beside the gurney. “You seem pretty certain.”

He hesitates for only a moment before flipping his hand beneath North’s and carefully threading their fingers together. “I trust you.”

She’s looking down at their hands. Connor wonders what she’s thinking. He wonders if she thinks about how many his hands have killed. He wonders how he knows hers have fought. They were made for such different tasks, but they both want the same thing.

Finally, she speaks. “Okay.” She squeezes his hand tightly, not letting him go. “Deal.”

The shadows are back in her eyes, and Connor finds that he doesn’t like that. He wants to see her uncurl on herself; wants to see her smile.

But once again he doesn’t know what to say. He tries his best. “I think you would have laughed at Markus when he was here. He spent a long time telling me off. He said that the worst Head of Security was a dead Head of Security.”

Thankfully she snorts and even her lip quirks up. “You’re all hypocrites. He has no room to talk.” She gives his hand another squeeze before drawing back. Suddenly her tone holds more hidden meaning than before. It wipes the shadows out with mischief, and even though Connor can practically taste the teasing coming, he finds himself relieved. “He cares about you a lot.”

“Markus cares about everyone a lot,” He says, finally conceding to the warning flashing in the edge of his vision and laying back down on the cot. Being in a supine position while others were in the room usually bothered him (with some exceptions), but he was finding that he didn’t mind it with North so much.

“Yes, but he cares about you extra.”

He stubbornly closes his eyes. He knows where this is going. He knows. He totally knows, and he totally doesn’t have the energy to decipher all the frantic emotions that Markus triggered in him. He liked North, but his pride would never recover. “I’m going into standby now.”

He hears her chuckle and stand, then linger by his bed. After a second, he feels the blanket around his waist tug up to his chest. Her touch lingers for a moment before he hears her walk to the door and slip out.

Yes, her certainly trusted North, and maybe soon, she could trust him too.


End file.
